Spinless Liberals are shuffling deckchairs while the Titanic sinks. It’s not a different leader that’s needed, it’s some actual leadership.

The Victorian Liberal Party has been a spineless, purposeless, and rudderless organisation for a long long time. Of all Australia’s political parties they are the ones I’ve most closely observed over the years and in fact I’m credited by some for their last election win, the victory of the utterly useless Ted Baillieu in 2010 – more on that later.

They are not a political party in any meaningful sense of the title. They are a social club, except that most social clubs have a purpose… the Victorian Liberal Party lack even that.

The malaise that has almost totally enveloped them has been creeping in for decades, since well before their last decent party leader Jeff Kennett. Kennett is not a symbol of what the party was at the time… even then he was hated internally by those who could not understand, comprehend, or accept someone with a sense of purpose.

In my early days as ‘Topher’ I was invited to speak at a Victorian Liberal Party Branch meeting. I’ve told the story a few times, but let me mention it in brief here as it was an instructive experience.

I received the invitation from a member of this particular branch, and I replied by saying I’d be happy to do it, but “you’re not going to like what I have to say.” Their reply to me was unequivocal: “I will like it, the other members may not, but they need to hear it.”

Needless to say this was now an invitation I could not refuse.

I kept it simple and fairly short. I simply read and riffed on the speech given by Robert Menzies when he founded the Liberal Party in Australia, then asked the question: If you look at the policies of the Liberal Party today, would you think you were looking at the policies of the party that Menzies founded, or the party that Menzies was warning us against?

To say it was awkward is a glorious understatement. I’ve never had people avoid me so enthusiastically after a talk.

But my question was and is valid. The Liberal Party were created for a reason, they HAD a purpose, but they have become the very thing they were supposed to oppose and their purpose is long forgotten.

Is it any wonder then that they are now perennial losers in Victorian elections? That their only election win this millennium was by the skin of their teeth, and by some accounts was due to some random youtube video made by some nobody youtube political commentator called Topher Field….?

Let me explain, but first, watch the video:

That was May 2009, back when ‘skinny me’ existed. The next Victorian State election was scheduled for Dec 2010, 18 months later.

A wonderful woman named Jan Beer ran as an independent in the seat of Whittlesea where this pipeline was located. She used this video extensively around her local area, even burning it onto DVDs to distribute to those without the internet speeds to watch Youtube! (It was 2009 after all).

I then went on the attack closer to the election with this piece:

While none of these videos were watched by large numbers of people, they were used strategically and put in front of the RIGHT people.

Jan went on to attract a large number of primary votes and passed them to the Liberal Candidate through preferencing. The Liberal Candidate went on to win their seat off the back of those preferences, and Ted Baillieu went on to win the election by a single seat. The final result was Labor 43 seats, Lib/Nats 45 seats. Swinging that one seat secured the Victorian Liberal Party their only win this Century.

And so Ted Baillieu became Premier, and the biggest disappointment of my political life.

Broken promises, no principles, no spine… he made no impact, no difference, we may as well have been ruled by a dishrag.

And unsurprisingly the Victorian people turfed him out on his ear the following election, handing power to Daniel Andrews is what would prove to be one of the most fateful election outcomes in Victorian history.

What was the problem?

I’ll tell you what Victorian Liberal Party members used to tell me when I asked them (before the election) what Ted Baillieu was like…

Umm…. He’s a nice guy…

It would have been funny if it wasn’t such a damning summary of a ‘nothing’ man.

I asked many people (I had a lot of contacts in the Vic Libs at the time) what they thought of Ted Baillieu, and it was as if they had all been trained in what to say and how to say it… Their head would cock to one side, lips would push outwards, sometimes a finger would stroke their chin, and after a moment’s pause they would say in a high-pitched squeak:

Umm…. He’s a nice guy…

Every. Damn. Time.

Before Baillieu had even won the election I knew it was a meaningless battle. Baillieu was not and never would be a Kennett.

What was AND IS needed was NOT a ‘nice guy’. You don’t buy a guard dog to be a ‘nice guy’. You don’t hire a lawyer on the basis of whether you’d like to have a BBQ with him, you don’t hire a bodyguard because you feel like you ‘can relate’ to him… You hire them to do a job, do it well, and not give a damn about anyone else’s opinions.

Victoria doesn’t need another ‘Nice Guy’ (literally a ‘Guy’ this time). We rejected him at the last election and whilst Daniel Andrews has been a trainwreck, the ‘Worst human rights violator in modern Australian history’ as I called him (and I stand by that!) It’s hard to believe that Matthew Guy would have been any better! Perhaps he MAYBE would have been less vicious… but faced with the same perfect storm of media hype and ‘expert’ apocalyptic predictions you can be 100% sure he would have folded like a card table and lockdowns, school closures, business destruction and loss of freedom would have been the inevitable result.

How do I know? Look at him! Listen to what he’s saying! He speaks and says nothing, stands for nothing, isn’t willing to actually plant his flag into any hill and declare that he will defend it. When asked what he would do differently he makes some mealy mouthed word-salad that ultimately means he would keep doing the same thing, just with a few slight adjustments around the edges.

It’s pathetic. Michael O’Brien (who Guy rolled to get the top job) was no better mind you, this isn’t commentary on the Vic Libs recent infighting… this is commentary on the entire party from top to bottom.

Victoria is a one-party-state. Even now after all the Daniel Andrews has done to us the Liberal Party are practically invisible. Being the opposition at the time like this should be the easiest job in the world. Easy wins, easy media coverage, easy to clearly articulate the difference between you and ‘them’… but where are they? Where have they been for the last 18 months?

No, Matthew Guy is not the leader of the opposition… David Limbrick took that mantle off the Liberal Party by actually *shock-horror* OPPOSING the government’s policies, offering a REAL alternative vision for how Covid-19 could be managed, doing what a politician in opposition should ALWAYS have been doing.

The next election is not a battle to see if the Victorian Liberal Party can get elected… it’s a battle to see if the Victorian Liberal Party can survive their own gormless and lame culture.

Victoria does not need another nice Guy. We need a fighter, someone willing to tell the truth and make tough calls no matter the outcry from the media and the covid-Petes out there, and if history is our guide then that means we need to be looking somewhere other than the Victorian Liberal Party.

Matthew Guy has barely a year in which to prove me wrong, to prove that he’s not ‘Just another nice Guy’. I hope he does, but I won’t hold my breath.

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